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Reuters
BERLIN
The fate of Chancellor Angela Merkel's unwieldy six-month-old government is hanging in the balance as the three coalition parties seek again this weekend to resolve their dispute over Germany's scandal-tainted spymaster.
The coalition parties agreed on Tuesday to transfer spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen to the interior ministry but the compromise deal, which would put Maassen in a better paid job, unravelled on Friday when Andrea Nahles - leader of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in Merkel's conservative-led coalition - said it was a mistake.
Merkel and her Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer agreed to review the deal and the chancellor said the three party leaders wanted to find a sustainable solution this weekend. A source from one of the parties said no meeting was planned for Saturday.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, general secretary of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), wrote to party members to say the CDU thought the planned talks should be used"to clarify whether all coalition partners can continue to unite together behind the common mission".
She said there must no longer be any doubt about whether the governing parties were able and willing to tackle the issues that mattered to people.
Former SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel told magazine Der Spiegel:"If the grand coalition doesn't manage to do what the people expect of it - namely stability and an ability to act - it has lost its raison d'etre."
